Young Writers Society

Entry the First

I rule.

It's that simple.

Not only have I managed to find excuses for restarting my novel so many times that you would need to by another hand from the second hand shop to count them on your fingers, but, I may well be doing so again. However, it is not something I wish to entertain too much.

My novel? Oh yes, it's that weird one about the guy who does that thing. Beggar's Utopia is what it's called at the moment, and, well, it's a terrible title. Any ideas on that front would be immensely appreciated. But seriously, I've always had a hard time trying to explain what it's about. I've also been transforming it crazily. Anyway, I'll give it a go. There are two parts to it, the first being around a third in size of the second.

Part One - This is more of an introduction into Logan, the main character. He's an exile who, until he had a paddy and left his companions, had spent most his time not really knowing what he was doing or why. The phrase I used is chasing sunsets; the idea that once they finish a day's walking, the day's over and he's one day closer to his death, not seeing the point in fighting to protect himself but doing so anyway. Fighting from who? One will find out. Back to the point--he used to be a beggar in a city, treated like trash, and really just exiled himself. Sort of. He stole some food and went to jail but the jail dog brought the keys over to him--one will, again, find out why. So when he leaves his companions who he regarded as family, Logan goes down into the river and lets it drown him, but he wakes up in a very pretty mansion, but he thinks it's disgusting, not sure why he's there and gets drunk instead. A man comes to the door, gives him clothes and tells him to go with him. Logan kills him with a wine bottle, faints, wakes back again, sees what he has done and has another paddy. He sees a broken mirror on the floor, and a poem that he eventually understands.

--Spoilers from here on--

Someone else comes to his house, tells him to go with him, Logan does, they go the city where everyone hates him, because he is a beggar. But the guy says that it was Logan's house that he was in. Logan is horrified, yah de yah, because he disagreed with what he had done. He finds his companions who he really wanted to and apologise, but they're rich and wealthy and controlling the city. Everyone in the city is completely blasé, because they are equal completely, and can't compare (the rich people are blocked off) themselves to anyone else. Thus, they don't have emotions. The rich people are the same but try to kill Logan when he says they have gone against everything they stood for, they reveal that he has no right, because he was in fact a servant in the mansion, and killed the owner with the wine bottle (as I said). They say they will have him hung. He kills one exile, hating it, runs from the city, but is stopped by a huge mob of people with torches. They want to burn the city down. It's explained in part two why, but he decides that he has to fight them or everyone will die, because in the city, no one knows war, and he knows there's no point trying to survive any longer. He tries to divert their attention while the other guy who got him out of the city tries to get everyone to defend themselves by teaching them hatred, breaking down the blockade between the nobles. They do, but are too late. Logan dies. A dog comes along.

Part Two - Secret, but way better, like.

If you read all of that, you're weird. And I know it's stupid but I want to think it could somewhere. I'll update this with more entries about how I'm doing, as if you care.

So go ahead; reply and make me feel happy, as if someone's interested in it, that is to say.

I am replying, so now you can be happy. ^_^ But then, you already knew I was following the story.

Although I didn't read all of it. I stopped at the line "--Spoilers from here on--".

This sounds unique to me; and that's what fascinates me. Weird or no, the story will work because it's not your typical story, for a change. Although i can't explain myself in further detail, I'll look forward to this story when it's posted on here eventually. Please pm me when it's all set up.

Thanks you two. =)

Entry Turns Two

I am actually thinking about taking this dream/nightmare I had last night a bit further. But it'd be a different story, and two projects at once might not work very well for me. Having said that, I am thinking about putting it between Part One and Two as a sort of transition--it fits in brilliantly too.

See, I was writing Nightmare's Pendulum (possible new title for novel, actually) which was a flash fiction/pile of rubbish last night, and this nightmare world came out:

Imagine that you and your best friends and family are inside a house together, otherwise completely normal. Now, one night you go to sleep and wake up with a distorted figure in your room, dressed as a policeman. He looks at you, runs out impossibly quickly, and you go downstairs to find that someone in your house is missing. But you can't remember who. Nor can anyone else--they don't even note it, and are still in the house with you.

You notice a pattern. Every time you sleep or look out the window, a car comes out of nowhere really quickly, and two policemen are standing at your door with the car. They see you, break through the door and you must pick who goes, because you looked out of the window or slept--no one else has.

It's as if there are cameras permanently looking in at you and you can't block it because then they will see that someone is in there and only you can be there. But they never ask if there's anyone else, just come back each time and take someone. You never see this person again and as soon as they leave the house, they are forgotten. I think that the idea of isolation is important here. Eventually, when it's just you, they come to take you away but you run outside and see the real world--a nightmare world.

It's where these houses are everywhere, but different. If you look outside you will make a comparison and understand. Then you look back and remember what actually happened in the house--no one dies. It's a permanent operation. You cannot die. It's like immortality, except the only form of death is if you kill yourself in your most feared way. In your case, seeing all of this is your most feared form of suicide. And then you remember--everyone revealed their fear in there. Some were rats, or peeling their skin off, or mummification, or being buried underground.

That doesn't make sense; dreams rarely do. And, after writing all of that out, I realised that you should never turn a dream into a novel.

Three's a Crowd

Woah, what's up with that last entry? Sounds like I had a bad day. Anyway, thought I'd update this thing. A few confessions:

1) I hate the title, and will probably be changing it sometime. Not sure what to though. (That is, you might say, your cue. )

2) It's at 17,000 words and I'm getting bored of the crappy poetic rambles I have every now and again, I mean, what the hell:

One of the twigs stretched forward, at little less hidden by distance. The lanterns began to twinkle and were not for once so blinding. Dimming.
Rising like the god of war—
Holy—
Snatch of lightning—
And a voice that shrieked in a cathedral’s bells split the air and lashed his face like a gale at the shore. Like the pelting of stones that clicked and cried by the sea of sighs. A pang ran through him. Logan’s hands clasped shut across his ears as he fell onto a stone bricks and shook his head. He cried and the volley of rage wheeled away until his hearing was left empty and his tongue fell with exhaustion.

Just weird. Oh well, first drafts iz goodness four fings lik dat.

3) I'm getting into poems a lot more. I went to some poetry live thing yesterday and met the National Poet for, err, Wales. And some other cool people. I wrote a poem, but I want to read more too. I like Sylvia Plath, and according to Jared there's some cool stuff in Edgar Allen Poe's (sp?) poems. I posted something in... Lyrical Poetry.

4) Go me. But I should review more.

5) I'm running out of things to say. Oh, ye. I'd like to write something with a little more satire involved. This is just depressing me at the moment. I've been reading the Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett, and it's awesome.

Blinky

Chasing sunsets is a beautiful phrase and I'm glad you explained it because it is an interesting explanation, chasing the end of his days implies that he almost wants to die? From what you said it seems he should be running away from sunsets and what is set to end him. Do you think it is inevitable that he is to die due to an illness, or juts due to the way that life is?

Why does he not remember his past life or know his friends? Did he have amnesia?

"he knows there's no point trying to survive any longer."
Why is there no point to survive? If this character is your main character, surely he should want to survive? Everyone wants to survive, in my opinion your "hero" is a bit emo and limp, why would he not want to live??

Blink your dream seems strangely familiar to me, and it SHOULD be turned into a novel, but you definitely need more character analysis, it seems to me that you're wrestling with a lot of ideas but no character depth. If you don't mind my saying so, seeming as it is your dream, it seems that these are your fears, and maybe you need to get to know YOURSELF a little more before you start to write this story. If it's not about you, so be it, but you definitely need more about you character, so my advice to you would be to analyse the depths of you character more.

Your dream to me was a little more interesting than the premise of your story haha! Sorry, but I love your dream, why not write about that?

reading your last reply to this topic, it would seem to me that before trying to write you definitely need to analyse yourself a bit more, it seems your at a plateau in which you're learning a lot of new things and you're enjoying writing, and that's brilliant, but try to pinpoint a single story rather than going crazy over all these new things you#re learning. Sorry I seem a bit abstract, feel free to pm me if you would like me to attempt to explain more, but you have definitely given some more hope in human nature that there is someone else out there who seems interested in the hopes of life and literature, and I really hope this comes across more in your fiction writing.

Sorry if I'm not as helpful as I intended to be haha! Good luck, I'd love to see where this progresses to.

...

Wow.

That was really helpful. You brought up a lot of key points, so thanks for that . I'm actually modernising it a lot, and it's more "believable". And it has greater character development and not so much of a weird symbolic piece with no actual substance.

Why is there no point to survive? If this character is your main character, surely he should want to survive? Everyone wants to survive, in my opinion your "hero" is a bit emo and limp, why would he not want to live??

It's kind of that human fear of death. He wants to live and find himself, but believes that there's no real point and wouldn't care if he were to be near death. Sort of. Thing.

But anyways--thank you so much for your input! Just let me know if you want me to return the favour. .

Blinky

Yo yo, Blinkster. What's new in your writing?

Hah, I feel prompted to update with a new post. Wow.

Entry goes Fourth

Since last time? A lot has happened:

1) I wrote some flashfic; it didn't work out. Don't ask the details. I'm not in the mood.

2) I gave up on that story I was writing. With the weird name. The beggar dude. Yeah, had a complete rethink. But! I think the new idea is far better, and I'm about 9000 words in. It takes ideas from the old thing but it makes sense and isn't so... pretentious. I also think my writing style has a improved a bit, but we'll see about that. It's called Eterne, featuring Logan and his brother, Finnian. They're both idiots (one's a murderer and the other's a depressed, retired detective). I'm not sure how to post it (because I'd like some thoughts). Either by chapter or the whole thing. Probably chapter.

3) Just before I started Eterne, I was writing a different novel, which was what I was talking about before--the nightmare world? That didn't see the light of day, but I might continue without in the future.

4) And before that, even, I wrote 1800 words into a novel, Milkman. I actually think it was quite good (for me) but it was too random, and, well, humour isn't my strong point. Go Terry Pratchett/Douglas Adams!

So there you have it. =) I'm desperate to finish Eterne by my birthday in December--the sooner I can get away from the alarm clock, the better!

Blinky